I'm Only After Success
by drauthor
Summary: 18 months since The Fall and ... let's just say the boys aren't getting on too well. A grisly crime scene lands them with a determined young woman and they have to work together as they're launched into a world of theatre, parenthood and James Moriarty.


_**Note: Thanks for reading! Please review, even if it's to rant or moan about life in general. I always want to improve so I appreciate constructive criticism. Just setting the scene in this little chapter :)**_

_**Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I am not actually Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Nor am I Martin Freeman or Benedict Cumberbatch. I do not own BBC Sherlock.**_

_**On with the show...**_

John H. Watson sat infront of a warm fire. It was Christmas Eve. It was a year and a half after his best friend's death. It was all fine. Really.

As he stared into the crackling fire, he spent a few minutes recalling the past eighteen months.

.:oOo:.

'Richard Brook' branded Sherlock Holmes a fraud. And everyone believed him. Almost everyone.

Mycroft quickly cleared Sherlock's name after finding certain files on Kitty Reilly's computer that showed 'Richard Brook' was, indeed, a fake. The rooftop which Sherlock had jumped off was searched. There was only a pool of blood (tested later, found to be fake blood) and Sherlock's phone. It held a single voice recording of Sherlock and Moriarty's encounter. John knew this because Mycroft sent him the recording. He remembered waking up one day in his pathetic, grey flat and there it was. The answers to all his questions. Just. Sitting. There. In a memory stick. Not that he'd known it right away.

_**The recording started with a strong crackling sound, like wind being blown into the phone. A man's laughter could be heard. He sounded crazed. John realised he must be on the roof.**_

_**"What?" a voice asked faintly. Like it was far away. John's heart did a double-take.**_ Moriarty! That's Moriarty's voice! What the hell is he doing up there? _**But the man kept laughing.**_

_**"What is it?" Moriarty's voice had a hard edge do it. "What did I miss?"**_

_**Footsteps could be heard.**_

"_**You're not going to do it. So the killers can be called off, then – there's a recall code or a word or a number."**_

Sherlock. Jesus, that's Sherlock's voice. Christ, what killers?

_**"I don't have to die ... if I've got you." he carries on.**_

Doesn't have to die? Why did he have to? What?

_**Jim speaks up, closer to Sherlock. "Oh! You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?" **_

The order?

_**"Yes. So do you." **_'s my Sherlock.

_**"Sherlock, your big brother and all the King's horses couldn't make me do a thing I didn't want to."**_

Mycroft? What does Mycroft-

_**"Yes, but I'm not my brother, remember? I am you – prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won't do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you."**_

_**"Naah. You talk big. Naah. You're ordinary. You're ordinary – you're on the side of the angels."**_

_**"Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them."**_

_**"No, you're not. I see. You're not ordinary. No. You're not. You're me! Thank you! Sherlock Holmes. Thank you. Bless you. As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends; you've got a way out. Well, good luck with that."**_

Save Sherlock's friends? What? Oh, the recall code to call off the killers from killing ... Oh, shit. From killing his friends.

_**John heard Moriarty chuckle, then a loud gunshot and flinched away from the recording. Sherlock's breath turns heavy and the wind can be heard whistling away. Then another voice can be heard.**_

_**"Hello?"**_

That's-

_**"John."**_

-me.

_**"Hey, Sherlock, you okay?"**_

_**"Turn around and walk back the way you came now."**_

_**"No, I'm coming in."**_

_**"Just do as I ask. Please."**_

_**"Where?" **_

_**"Stop there."**_

_**"Sherlock?"**_

_**"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."**_

_**"Oh God."**_

_**"I ... I ... I can't come down, so we'll ... we'll just have to do it like this."**_

_**"What's going on?"**_

_**"An apology. It's all true."**_

_**"Wh-what?"**_

_**"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty."**_

_**"Why are you saying this?"**_

_**"I'm a fake."**_

_**"Sherlock ..."**_

_**"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs Hudson, and Molly ... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."**_

_**"Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met ... the first time we met, you knew **_

_**all about my sister, right?"**_

_**"Nobody could be that clever."**_

_**"You could."**_

_**"I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress **_

_**you. It's a trick. Just a magic trick."**_

_**"No. All right, stop it now."**_

_**"No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move."**_

_**"All right."**_

_**"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"**_

_**"Do what?"**_

_**"This phone call – it's, er ... it's my note. It's what people do, don't they – leave a note?"**_

_**"Leave a note when?"**_

_**"Goodbye, John."**_

_**"No. Don't-" The recording cut off and John vaguely remembers seeing Sherlock throw down his phone onto the rooftop.**_

After the recording, John didn't speak to Mycroft. He supposed he should have been grateful towards Mycroft for giving it to him. At least now he knew that Sherlock had jumped for John. And Mrs. Hudson. And Lestrade. His only friends. And not because he'd given in to the vulture-like tabloids and back-stabbing police Sergeants. Except Moriarty was still out there. Why he hadn't started taunting John yet, he had no idea. It sure as hell wasn't out of respect.

John hadn't been paying the rent of his small, crappy bedsit and strongly suspected Mycroft of helping him get by. John was still angry at Mycroft for giving Moriarty everything he needed to bring Sherlock down. Literally. But some part of him felt he needed to stay connected to Mycroft, maybe because he helped clear Sherlock's name. Maybe because Mycroft was the closest person-after himself, of course-to Sherlock.

So an emptiness settled inside him. John abandoned his blog. He didn't read the papers. He just kept alive. For a whole year.

Then, on the 26th of June, everything got better.

He'd met Mary at the Criterion, a small cafe not too far away from his bedsit-his leg had been giving him some problems, so when he went for walks, he didn't go far. Anyway, he'd been sitting at a table and had accidentally knocked over his crutch (which he'd started using again). Mary, carrying coffee, had tripped and flew forward. John had jumped up to catch her, ignoring his leg. He bought her another coffee and they started talking. John found it very easy to talk to someone new-someone Sherlock didn't know.

Looking back, John realised that one of the reasons he and Mary got on so well was because she was completely different from Sherlock.

Mary was brilliant with children because she taught primary school kids, though it was her choice to teach. Her parents had been very, very rich. Like, seven-going-on-eight-figures rich. She had blond hair, long and soft blond hair. She had very deep blue eyes that looked almost purple. She was short and slim, only an inch or two taller than John, but neither of them cared. She was caring, kind, thoughtful, educated, sensible and had the sweetest laugh. They fell for each other instantly and the only time John could completely remove Sherlock from his mind was when he was with Mary. He didn't even have to use his crutch anymore.

Yes, John talked about Sherlock sometimes. Sometimes he would tell a funny story to Mary just because he had to talk about Sherlock. They would laugh at the madman that was Sherlock Holmes, then John would laugh even harder after remembering Sherlock's little scowl was would doubt make an appearence if he were... there.

Mary seemed to understand everything and know exactly what to say. And when a random tear slipped from John's eye, Mary would kiss it away and say,"I'm here. I love you. He's gone, but I'm here for you..." He would hug her and tell her he loved her until he forgot Sherlock. Even if he didn't mean it entirely. And even if he didn't really forget Sherlock.

And if John sometimes imagined Sherlock against his lips, not Mary, he would pull away, chanting in his head all the reasons he liked Mary. Adored Mary. Enjoyed Mary's company. Was happy living the rest of his life with Mary. But even if he didn't love her, he knew he needed to do something with his life and prove that he could be an ordinary man. Even after his parents' deaths, the war, and Sherlock.

John moved into a new house with Mary quickly, but not hastily. Soon, he would propose to Mary and, naturally, she would say yes. John knew what he was doing was right and could even see himself building a family. A perfect family with two small, pretty children with blond hair and blue eyes- a boy and a girl. Maybe they would have a dog, two cats and a white picket fence. With perfectly-shaped topiary and delicate window-shutters. A constant, gentle breeze would pet the the emerald blades of grass and shoot ripples through their duck pond. And on the rare occasion of a thunderstorm, they would light a fire in their large mantlepiece, hear it hum its fiery tune and toast their feet. A heavy tartan blanket would cover John and Mary and their sleeping, angelic children and together they would laugh about the mishap in the Criterion that brought them together. They would laugh at all of John's silly girlfriends (and boyfriends, from The Army Days). They would laugh at Mary's funny stories. And they would laugh at life. He told Mary all these fantasies and she agreed that that's how she wanted to spend her life.

He never imagined having that sort of a life when Sherlock was around. But, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Harry, Mycroft- EVERYONE he knew thought it best for him to move on from Sherlock's death. Or as Harry put it so delicately, 'Get over him! He was just some-hic-posh tosser an' thinks-hic-he's better than n-normal people like you'n'me-hic'. Then John had taken the bottle of wine from her hand and pushed her onto the street, along with a handful of imaginative and horrific swear words, not-so-politley reminding her that she definitely _**not**_ normal. Anyway, building a family with Mary was definitely moving on, and everyone could see it. That he, John Watson, Army Doctor and all-round BAMF was finally coping.

He didn't need to work due to Mary's ginormous bank account, so instead he wrote short stories for children. After all, he didn't want to be entirely dependant on her. And if he was going to have a perfect family, that meant being a good dad. For most of the stories, he adapted some of the less gruesome cases from when he was with Sherlock and twisted them so they were generally less confusing and had a good old-fashioned happy ending. Though, he did change the characters. He could imagine sitting in his new house, tucking his children (Jack and Emily) into bed and then reading them one of his stories. He was going to make a brilliant father and he knew it. Sometimes Mary would take in drafts of his stories to her schoolchildren and they could review them in that brutally honest, yet innocence, way that all young children-and some adults-did.

.:oOo:.

So, that Christmas, John wanted to begin his new life with Mary. First, though, he was going to marry her. He'd bought the ring (18 Carat white gold), he'd called off any plans they had for Christmas Eve, and he was even going to cook. He lifted himself from his chair, threw on an apron and washed his hands, ready for some serious, bad-arse, John H. Watson-style cooking.


End file.
